Yes, it is true. Trump is the first president-elect who is merchandising. You can buy a “Make America Great Again” ornament for your Christmas Tree for only $149 (plus shipping). In addition to being available on Trump’s website, you can also buy it from Amazon.

And that’s where the fun begins. Because Amazon allows comments, and the comments are hilarious. Here’s a few examples:

Despite ordering a more reasonable ornament, this one arrived. It. Is. Yuge. It’s absolutely yuge. It’s the biggest ornament. Yuge.
I hung it on my tree, but it is so yuge that it has totally unbalanced my whole tree. No matter where I hang it, the tree leans waaaaaay over to the far right.

The only Christmas ornament that will try to deport your nativity scene.

Put it next to my mother Mary ornament and let’s just say she ain’t a virgin anymore.

“Donald Trump will be the first U.S. president ever to have appeared in an ad for Pizza Hut. In fact, some pundits are predicting Trump will run in 2020 against Flo from Progressive.” – Conan O’Brien

“There’s talk that Donald Trump may appoint Sarah Palin as secretary of the interior, which means she would oversee the National Park Service. When they heard that, bears were like, ‘Well, we had a good run.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Newt Gingrich said in an interview yesterday that would he like to serve as chief planner for Donald Trump’s administration. But first, before starting his new job, though, he must finish up his contract at the Keebler tree.” – Seth Meyers

“Later, the market went down when Trump announced he’s getting rid of Obamacare. The market went up when Trump simply assured everyone that he replaced it with ‘something terrific.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Some analysts say a Donald Trump presidency could cripple the future of legalized marijuana. And to make matters worse, once it’s crippled, Trump will make fun of it.” – Conan O’Brien

“It was a busy day today at the White House with President Obama hosting NBA champions the Cleveland Cavaliers, as well as President-elect Donald Trump. It actually got a little awkward when Trump walked up to LeBron James and said, ‘Nice to meet you, Mr. President.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“It was a busy bay at the White House. In addition to the Trumps, they welcomed the Cleveland Cavaliers to be honored for winning the NBA title this year. It happened to be on the same day. There was one awkward moment when LeBron James grabbed the basketball to sign it — turned out top Donald Trump’s head.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“It was another interesting day in America today. The transfer of power has already begun at the White House this morning. President Obama sat down with President-elect Trump, but Trump did a funny thing. He came in and said, ‘You’re fired.'” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Today, the transfer of power began when President Obama hosted Trump at the White House for the most surprising remake of ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.'” – Stephen Colbert

“Donald Trump visited President Obama in the White House today, which got Trump really excited to do his favorite thing: evict a black family from their home.” – Seth Meyers

“What did they talk about? What was the tour like? ‘All right, Donald, this is the Blue Room, this is the Red Room, and down the hall is the office I said you were fundamentally unfit for. Library’s downstairs.'” – Stephen Colbert

“This is the first time they met. They never met before. That must have been so strange. ‘Sasha, Malia, come down, meet the man who questioned Daddy’s citizenship for the last eight years.'” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Can you imagine how awkward that meeting was? The first African-American president sitting down with a president-elect who was endorsed by the Klan? A guy who spent five years, created his political career, demanding Obama prove where he was born, then denying he did it.” – Stephen Colbert

“They were to meet for 15 minutes, but it was 90 minutes. Trump had questions for Obama, like ‘How the hell do I get out of this?'” – Jimmy Kimmel

“President Obama and Donald Trump met at the White House today, where they discussed foreign and domestic policy. You know, things like which one is which.” – Seth Meyers

“Trump is now receiving the classified daily intelligence briefing known as ‘the book’, making it the only book he owns that doesn’t have his picture on it.” – Stephen Colbert

“They were besieged by reporters in the Oval Office at which point the president offered Mr. Trump unsolicited advice for dealing with the press. [plays clip of Obama] ‘Thank you, everybody. We’re not — we are not going to be taking any questions. [To Trump] This is a good rule — don’t answer any questions when they’re yelling at you.'” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Of course, Trump wasn’t alone. Melania was there for a private meeting with Michelle Obama, to ensure the peaceful transition of speeches.” – Stephen Colbert

“While President Obama met with Donald Trump, Michelle Obama met privately with Melania Trump. Michelle said, ‘It’s a pleasure to welcome you and Donald to the White House.’ Melania said, ‘It is a pleasure to welcome you and Donald to the White House.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Melania Trump’s home country, Slovenia, is said to be ‘very proud’ of her. Then Slovenia admitted, ‘We really don’t have a lot going on.'” – Conan O’Brien

“So, Michelle actually had a nice time showing Melania around, although it got weird when they walked into the Lincoln Bedroom and Melania said, ‘Wow, what a lovely closet.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Vice President Joe Biden got together with incoming Vice President Mike Pence. Biden went over the primary responsibilities of being vice president, which are: not falling asleep at the State of the Union address … and that’s about it. So they covered that.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“While our leaders try to make the best of this, millions of Americans were very unhappy about how this election played out. Thousands of protesters took to the streets last night in Chicago, New York, here in L.A., a number of cities. It’s somewhat refreshing to see people angry in real life instead of just on Facebook, isn’t it?” – Jimmy Kimmel

“So many people protested the results of the election. I saw some tweets that said this election is a total sham and a travesty, the Electoral College is a disaster, and we should wage revolution. The surprising part — this was all from Donald Trump’s Twitter feed after the 2012 election. So technically, all of those Trump protesters actually agree with Trump. See, we’re already coming together.” – James Corden

“It’s been 48 hours since the election — I’m happy to report the healing has begun. I just unblocked three family members on Facebook.” – Conan O’Brien

I am delighted that Jill Stein will force recounts to be done in several states that used voting machines that are known to be easily hacked.

No, it is not because I think Hillary Clinton actually won the election. That is not the point.

The point is that if we know that certain voting machines are easily hacked, then the only way to ensure that our elections are valid is to make sure those machines have not been hacked, or at least determine if they have been hacked so we can do something about it. I would be saying the same thing if thought the election had been stollen from Trump. Indeed, this should be a bi-partisan issue.

A week ago I posted an article arguing that the easiest way to throw an election would be to spread disinformation over social networks. Well, we now have proof (independently verified by two parties) that this has already happened.

Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment, as an insurgent candidate harnessed a wide range of grievances to claim the White House. The sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and Google to crack down on “fake news,” as they have vowed to do after widespread complaints about the problem.

You really do need to read the whole WaPo article. This is important. Foreign interests are deliberately spreading disinformation in order to not only change the results of US elections, but to destroy America’s standing in the world and to discredit democracy around the world. And it is working.

“Last night, Donald Trump was elected president. The first thing I did this morning was call my old high school bully and congratulate him.” – Conan O’Brien

“I had the weirdest, weirdest dream last night. Remember that guy who used to host “The Apprentice”? I dreamed we elected him president.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Two things happened last night: Donald Trump got elected president, and my job just got easier for the next four years.” – Conan O’Brien

“Donald Trump won the presidential election last night and then, out of habit, Kellyanne Conway said, ‘No, he didn’t!'” – Seth Meyers

“After the results came in, Donald Trump gave a big victory speech. He said he couldn’t have done it without the love of his life, his rock, his better half … FBI Director James Comey.” – Jimmy Fallon

“It was a weird night to be watching the news. If you were flipping around, every news anchor on every channel was just going, ‘uhhh,’ and then going to commercial.” – James Corden

“As the evening went on and the results came in, every anchor looked like a child slowly realizing that no one was showing up to his birthday party.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“President Obama called Donald Trump last night to congratulate him, and even invited him to the White House for a meeting tomorrow. Of course, it was hard to understand Obama, ’cuz at the time he was chewing 80 pieces of Nicorette.” – Jimmy Fallon

“President Obama congratulated Donald Trump in a speech today and reminded the country that we ‘are all on the same team.’ It’s just that now, half of us are on defense.” – Seth Meyers

“President Obama has invited Donald Trump to the White House on Thursday to discuss transition plans. And Trump is pretty nervous, he’s never been to a black man’s house before.” – Seth Meyers

“Trump also received congratulations from Russian President Vladimir Putin. They spent two minutes on the phone discussing politics, then an hour saying, ‘No YOU hang up!’ ‘No YOU hang up first.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“People who voted for Trump are happy today. People who voted for Hillary are disappointed. But listen, no matter who you voted for, the important thing is you all got stickers.” – James Corden

“When Hillary found out she lost she conceded with grace and dignity. When Gary Johnson found out he lost he was like, ‘Wait, the election was yesterday?'” – James Corden

“For the millions who are disappointed for Hillary, remember, America has a special place for people who lose. Ironically, it’s the cast of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’.” – Conan O’Brien

“Hillary underperformed among women, African-Americans, Hispanics, and young voters. Really the only place she did very well was among pollsters.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“I read that polls may have been off because the shift to cellphones made it harder to collect data from people. Then Hillary said, ‘They seemed to have a pretty easy time collecting data from MY phone!'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Apple began selling refurbished iPhones in its online store yesterday. Which is good news for the 40 million people who smashed their screens last night.” – Seth Meyers

Things might seem pretty dark for Democrats this Thanksgiving, but there are some silver linings.

First, a little-mentioned court decision just happened that could have profound and far-reaching consequences. The reason it has not been mentioned much is that it is extremely wonky, but that doesn’t diminish its importance. Indeed, this decision has the potential to remake the electoral map, and largely in favor of the Democrats.

But the really important part is that the decision creates an easy-to-calculate measure that can potentially be used to judge whether illegal gerrymandering has occurred. This measure is called the “efficiency gap” (explanation at link, and there is a good short explanation here).

In 2004, the Supreme Court noted that partisan gerrymandering should be illegal, but bemoaned that there was no good measure by which to judge whether it had occurred. This new district court ruling provides that measure. The case will almost certainly end up in the Supreme Court and it has a good chance of passing. If that happens, it can prevent and even overturn quite a bit of gerrymandering.

This could be a big deal for Democrats. As Electoral Vote points out, not only did Democrats get more votes in the presidential election, they also got more votes in the Congressional elections. Anything that makes voting more fair, and especially the reduction of gerrymandering, could help swing quite a few races. It is important to remember that even though that Republicans are about to control all of the government, they are still a minority party, and Democrats are the majority party.

“The election is finally here and tomorrow, people who cast their vote will receive one of those ‘I Voted’ stickers. Actually, with such a crazy election, they’re going with a different sticker this year: ‘So, That Happened’.” – Jimmy Fallon

“There used to be a tradition of heavy drinking on Election Day. People used to get drunk like St. Patrick’s Day, then they passed all sorts of laws to prevent that from happening. I think this is the year to bring that tradition back.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“In less than 24 hours the election will be over. Right now, Hillary has the edge and Trump supporters are threatening that if she wins, there might be a revolution. Americans these days can’t get nine guys to show up for softball every Thursday night, do you think they’re going to be signing up for a revolt?” – James Corden

“They’re going to be like, ‘Ah, I can’t do Wednesday, I’ve got a parent-teacher conference Wednesday. Can we move the revolt to the weekend?’ ‘I can’t, the kids have got judo. They’re doing so well.'” – James Corden

“Tomorrow we will elect either Biff from “Back to the Future” or one of the robots from ‘Westworld’. You will decide.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Tomorrow is Election Day, so it’s time to finally decide. Are you with her, or are you with the FBI, Vladimir Putin, the KKK and Scott Baio?” – Seth Meyers

“In less than 24 hours the election will be over. The race for the White House in 2020 will begin in two months, I guess.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“If there’s one thing that we learned from this election, it’s that we never, ever should have taught our moms how to use Facebook; that was a mistake.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“We tried democracy, I think we proved we’re not mature enough to handle it, we can’t do this. Let’s go back to only caring about pet videos.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“There’s been a lot of fighting, a lot of arguing. Whoever wins, I want us to all promise one thing: Let’s never do this again.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“In other words, stand in line and then take that ‘I Voted’ sticker and put it right over your lips. We don’t want to hear about it anymore.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Out of the 100 largest newspapers in America, Hillary has been endorsed by 57, while Trump has only been endorsed by two. The most shocking part of that story is that America still has 100 newspapers.” – Jimmy Fallon

“One thing helping Hillary is the fact that FBI Director James Comey told Congress on Sunday that his latest probe into her emails still found no evidence of wrongdoing. This is a complete reversal of the bombshell letter he sent last week. It makes Director Comey look really bad; in fact, now at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list is a new FBI director. This investigation of Clinton’s emails was built up to be this huge game-changer and in the end there was nothing to it. It was basically the Apple Watch of scandals.” – James Corden

“The early voting results are in and on Saturday, Nickelodeon announced the winner of its Kids Pick the President initiative. This is an event where school kids vote, and the majority were overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton. Nickelodeon may have voted for Hillary, but we need to find out what Cartoon Network and the Disney Channel say before we can call it a lock.” – James Corden

“The final polls from the major news outlets show Hillary Clinton with anywhere between a 4- and 6-point lead, or as The Huffington Post reported it, ‘a 46-point lead!'” – Seth Meyers

“Donald Trump was rushed off the stage at a rally over the weekend after someone in the crowd yelled, ‘Gun’, which is surprising because I just assumed that’s how people at Trump rallies greeted each other. ‘Gun!’ ‘And gun to you, good sir!’ ‘A good gun to us all!'” – Seth Meyers

“The New York Times reported that people running Donald Trump’s campaign have blocked him from using Twitter. More accurately, they’ve switched his phone with a calculator, and he still hasn’t noticed.” – Jimmy Fallon

“According to the New York Times, Donald Trump’s press aides have revoked access to his Twitter account in the final days before the election. They changed his password to something he would never guess: ‘ILoveWomenOver40’.” – Seth Meyers

“Twitter is Trump’s lifeline to the world, especially since it turns out that Donald Trump does not use a computer. No computer at all. He even files his taxes the old-fashioned way — not.” – Stephen Colbert

“Sources say that Trump is already finalizing his cabinet in case he wins tomorrow. Rudy Giuliani would be attorney general, Newt Gingrich would be secretary of state, and Chris Christie would be the wall.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Trump based his whole campaign on that Twitter account. What’s he going to do now? Write messages in bronzer on bedsheets and hang them out the window of Trump Tower?” – Stephen Colbert

“Trump’s aides have taken away his Twitter but don’t worry, he is still tearing it up on Yelp.” – Seth Meyers

Now, it appears that Trump is seeing the light—at least, the one that emanates from Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan would like to replace Medicare with vouchers and block grants to states, with an eye to shrinking (and likely eliminating) the program in the long term. Sometime this weekend, Trump’s transition website was updated to include Trump’s belief that we need to “Modernize Medicare” (English translation: vouchers) and “Maximize flexibility for States in administering Medicaid” (English translation: block grants).

There’s a name for this, and it is called “bait and switch”. My only question is, if Trump follows “every other Republican” and cuts Social Security and Medicare, how are Trump supporters going to react? Will they find a way to blame this on the Democrats? Or will they realize that — as Paul Krugman points out — that this will be “one of the most blatant violations of a campaign promise in history”.

What makes this even more ironic is that cuts to Medicare and Social Security will hurt Trump’s most rabid supporters the most. Will they not care?

“Ted Cruz wants to make America great again. Remember the guy everyone wanted to punch in the face? He campaigned on behalf of Trump today, a man who insulted his wife and his father and his face. Back then Ted Cruz called Trump a sniveling coward, but at a rally with Mike Pence today, he told the crowd he believes Donald Trump is the sniveling coward this country needs right now. Clearly, the man has no principles whatsoever.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Authorities are investigating why an official FBI Twitter account, that have been dormant for over a year, suddenly posted several tweets praising Donald Trump. Oh, you don’t know why? Well, take your time. I won’t ‘Russia’.” – Seth Meyers

“Former KKK leader David Duke told reporters today that if he’s elected to the Senate, he would be Donald Trump’s most loyal advocate. When asked what he’d do if Trump loses, Duke said, ‘I’ll burn that cross when we come to it.” – Seth Meyers

“Donald Trump will reportedly hold a small gathering on election night instead of a large celebration, because he is superstitious. Oh, sorry, I read that wrong, ‘super racist’.” – Seth Meyers

“According to a new poll, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are neck-and-neck in New Hampshire, while Chris Christie isn’t even neck.” – Seth Meyers

I am becoming more and more convinced that micro-targeting of news (through AM talk radio, the internet, and especially social media) is largely to blame for the divorce of politics from reality (and consequently the election of Donald Trump). It also explains why Democrats were convinced that Hillary Clinton was about to be elected.

Unfortunately, I am at a total loss about what to do about this. Although I am still hopeful that like any media transition, people will eventually learn how to deal with new media and start acting rational again.

But then again, I might just be delusional, and we are totally screwed for a long time.

“A new poll finds that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are in a statistical tie just a week from Election Day. But on the bright side, at least Trump’s finally in a tie that was made in America.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have run national commercials during the World Series games, marking the only time Cubs and Indians fans were booing at the same time.” – Jimmy Fallon

“What an insane week this is. The Cubs may win the World Series, Donald Trump may be elected president, and the whitest man in America is on stage at the Apollo! It’s officially the end of days, ladies and gentlemen. This was prophesied in the Bible.” – Conan O’Brien

A recent study found that always letting children win games in competitions could damage their ability to learn. Which is scary, because we’re six days away from letting the biggest child win the biggest game.” – Seth Meyers

“But, you know, Trump voters—really? Not even the guy who says he wants to fuck his daughter? This is not a deal-breaker for you? I mean, what does it take? A racist, a liar, a tax cheat, a draft-dodger, a deadbeat, a Russian agent, and a rapist. You know we’re a nuclear power, right? These are red flags.” — Bill Maher

“No matter what side you’re on, people are stressed about what’s about to happen after the election. In fact, things have gotten so crazy that Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman, tweeted: ‘On Nov. 8, I’m voting for Trump. On Nov. 9, if Trump loses, I’m grabbing my musket.’ To be honest, it is just nice to hear a Republican saying is he going to grab something that’s not part of a woman.” – James Corden

“Yesterday, in a speech, President Obama said that when voting, young men should look deep inside themselves. So, as of an hour ago, the front-runner is Kate Upton.” – Conan O’Brien

“It looks like the FBI is trying to hurt Hillary’s campaign, which has a lot of people upset. Mostly Russia. That’s THEIR gig.” – Stephen Colbert

“In anticipation of her victory, Hillary Clinton has reportedly planned a fireworks show over the Hudson River for election night. Oh god, remember how excited she got over balloons? What’s she going to do if she sees fireworks?” – Seth Meyers

“Former Congressman Anthony Weiner has reportedly checked into rehab for sex addiction after his numerous sexting scandals. Weiner has asked for privacy and also the Wi-Fi password.” – Seth Meyers

Donald Trump’s choice for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, is not only a racist, but he is absolutely against the legalization of marijuana. And as Attorney General, he would have the unilateral power to make it illegal again, even in the states that have decriminalized it.

How can this be? Because there are still harsh federal laws against marijuana, which make it illegal even for medical use. When the states decriminalized pot, starting with Colorado, the Justice Department issued a memo saying that they would not prosecute users and sellers in states where it was legalized. However, that memo could easily be reversed by the new Attorney General.

That’s right, Republicans claim to believe in states’ rights, but would gladly use federal law to overrule the states.

Even though according to Scientific American, teen use of marijuana actually went down in Colorado after legalization. And legalization has brought in tons of tax revenue to cash-starved states.

This also ties in with Sessions’ racism, since minorities are far more likely to be arrested and jailed for marijuana use. African Americans are arrested 3.7 times more often for smoking pot, even though usage rates for whites and blacks are roughly equal.

That’s right, Jeff Sessions was originally turned down by Republicans for a federal judgeship for being too racist. I guess that doesn’t matter anymore.

Who else has Trump picked for his cabinet? In addition to racist Sessions, there is also Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.) for national security advisor. Flynn is a bigot who said that Americans should fear all Muslims. And finally there is Trump’s pick to run the CIA, Rep. Michael Pompeo (R-KS). Pompeo was a member of the Republican congressional Benghazi investigation, and when his colleagues decided they didn’t have enough evidence to accuse Hillary Clinton of any crime, this was not good enough for him, so he wrote his own minority report accusing Clinton of a cover-up.

It isn’t looking good. Trump is picking people for his cabinet who are to the right of most Republicans. And if you thought Trump was being racist and bigoted just to win the election, think again.

“Donald Trump still hasn’t released his tax returns. Twelve women have accused him of sexual assault, and he’s going on trial for fraud for Trump University in November, but now the only thing the media is talking about is emails. It’s like if during the O.J. trial, everyone was focused on whether or not the Ford Bronco had up-to-date registration.” – Seth Meyers

“The polls are tightening. The latest ABC News/ Washington Post poll has Donald Trump moving ahead of Hillary Clinton by one point as enthusiasm declines. Though, to be fair, any time Trump gets close to a woman, enthusiasm tends to decline.” – Stephen Colbert

“A memo from a veteran spy says that Vladimir Putin has been supporting Donald Trump for five years. After hearing this, Trump said, ‘Oh my God, I forgot it was our anniversary! What do you get for five years? I hope it’s not CHINA?'” – Jimmy Fallon

“The election is just one week from today. So I guess in one week, we’ll know if Donald Trump is our next president — or if Hillary Clinton rigged the election.” – Jimmy Fallon

“For the first time in their 111-year history, Variety has endorsed a presidential candidate — Hillary Clinton. That’s right, the magazine named Variety said, ‘Let’s have a second President Clinton!'” – Stephen Colbert

“The 2016 presidential election is in exactly one week! One weak Republican, and one weak Democrat.” – Seth Meyers

“Mark one’s calendar because Election Day is but one week away. Seven days. Enough time to tell your family you love them and make your peace with God. As the captain of the ‘Titanic’ once said, ‘This is not a drill.'” – Stephen Colbert

“That’s right, there’s exactly one week until Election Day, and this is probably a bad sign, but that’s where the calendar just stops.” – Seth Meyers

“Ted Cruz posted a photo on Twitter last night of himself dressed as the Phantom of the Opera for Halloween. Said trick-or-treaters, ‘Aggh! We can still see half your face!'” – Seth Meyers

“While hosting their final White House Halloween party yesterday, first lady Michelle Obama actually told the kids, ‘Hey! Candy for everybody!’ Then Barack looked around and was like, ‘OK, who’s that in the Michelle Obama costume?'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Democratic contributor Donna Brazile has resigned from CNN after WikiLeaks revealed she leaked a primary debate question to the Clinton campaign. Turns out the question was about lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan. So, finally, someone lost their job over Flint.” – Stephen Colbert